What Do Other People in My Situation Do?

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RockAuto
Vendor
Posts: 44
Joined: Mon Feb 06, 2017 11:24 am
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Gaining insights from a relative handful of anonymous product reviews requires patience and skill at reading between the lines. Anonymous reviews of replacement auto parts are even sketchier. There are just too many parts and too many vehicle models to ever hope to get a meaningful number of useful reviews for any one part. RockAuto may have ten alternators with a choice of three amperage outputs that fit just one truck. Reviews of broad part types (alternators, thermostats...) and brands (ACDelco, Stant...) without any specific make, year, model, engine connections are likely to be nothing but vague opinions and biases.

RockAuto's heart icons (Image) turn the extreme specificity of replacement auto parts into an advantage! A heart icon next to a part means it was ordered most frequently and returned least frequently for a specific vehicle. This is actual data from ALL customers facing similar repairs on the same vehicle. That is what makes heart icons great. They are based on data that automatically reflects the myriad things ALL customers purchasing that part for that vehicle have taken into account.

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mdmellott
Posts: 1147
Joined: Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:32 pm
Car: '13 Kia Soul+ 2.0L AT
'02 Pathfinder SE 3.5L AT P/4WD
Location: SF Bay Area, CA

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Is there a question here or this an advertisement for RockAuto? "Reading between the lines", I might assume you are asking what works best as a replacement part. OEM is typically the best option to maximize the number of years a replaced part will last and the form, fitment, and functionality is going to be absolutely perfect as intended by the car maker. Of course, if I go lower on cost I still want value that lasts. If that only means, unbeknownst to me, that I get a year or maybe three of useful life from a beloved RockAuto supplied part and my warranty is long past its term then I, like many others, cannot return the part and my value decision was initially cheapened by what I thought was a good deal. Therefore, the RockAuto heart icon can be misleading if many shoppers buy an item and cannot return it a year or so later when they need to buy a replacement again. Been there done that. Spend the time to research and know why OEM is better for specific parts needed and then a better value decision can be made in favor of an aftermarket part replacement at a lower cost and if that makes sense long term and financially based on what can be known about the aftermarket part. You know, like anonymous product reviews and automotive forums like NICOclub.


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